“Is your cheese dip white?”
That’s a pretty simple question, but you should have seen the expression on the face of the beautiful young lady I was talking to yesterday when I asked her that. I have to admit that, if I didn’t know what was so special about white cheese dip, I’d probably have a similar reaction, were someone to ask me the same thing.
When most people think of Michael Martinez, they may see red, but they don’t think of white cheese dip. But for the past few years I have been participating in an online revolution which surprises me every week. You see, I’m not alone in my quest for the perfect white cheese dip. Thousands of people around the world, having sampled perfection at some time in the past, are seeking desperately for a new supply now that they no longer live near one of the restaurants which serve this speciality.
It almost sounds like a drug addiction, I know. And maybe in some ways, it’s an addiction. People are very obsessive about finding the right recipe. We can be judgemental and cruel when we dismiss unacceptable substitutes. So I was a bit skeptical when a reader contacted me yesterday with information about a restaurant almost in my neighborhood which was serving the white cheese dip.
The restaurant is Berry Hill Baja Grill. Never heard of them? Neither had I. There are only two restaurants, right now, and both are in Houston. The lovely cashier told me the company is offering franchises and that San Antonio, Texas is supposed to get one. You lucky San Antonions have no idea of what you’re about to experience.
Most people have never had the opportunity to try a really good white cheese dip. In my experience, you can only find it in Mexican family-owned restaurants, mostly in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. For a long time, I thought this was some secret, home-made recipe that had been brought north by a few secretive clans, perhaps descendants of the Mayans, who might have to kill anyone who learned the secret.
White cheeses abound. You can find all sorts of white cheeses in most stores. The color is nothing special. A lot of people are very familiar with mozzarella, for example, which is a favorite cheese for pizza. But the white cheese dip is such an elusive appetizer. Many have tried to make it. Few have succeeded.
Curiously, the dip has long been commercially available. A company called Casa Nobleza used to sell it in a little round container. All you had to do was slip the bowl into a microwave oven, warm it up, and you had an instant party at your house. A grocery store manager once told me she couldn’t keep the Casa Nobleza white dip in stock, but she had trouble selling the rest of the Casa Nobleza line of dips. It seems no one wanted them. Bean dip, after all, is bean dip (to someone who understands what it means to love the white cheese dip).
Hence, buying the Casa Nobleza white cheese dip became something of a strategic endeavor. One had to plan a week ahead to be at the store right after the truck came in. Otherwise, the dip would be gone within hours, and it might be several weeks before the store dared place another order. Casa Nobleza, it seems, required stores to carry the full line of dips.
And then, one day, Casa Nobleza products stopped appearing in my store. No longer could I or thousands like me satisfy the endless craving at our leisure. Now we had to persuade our friends, relatives, and lovers to accompany us yet once again to a local Mexican restaurant. They had to figure out whether they wanted tacos or enchilatas. We cheese dip devotees didn’t care what came on the plate, as long as it was slathered with the white dip. Heaven is finding a new menu item with the words “served with our famous white cheese dip” in the description.
The addiction became so bad people began to avoid me. But I couldn’t stop myself. I had to keep going to Mexican restaurants. There was nothing in the fast food world which compared with the white cheese dip. And, alas! There was only one way I could trim 20 pounds off my waist one year when I needed to lose weight. I had to stop eating white cheese dip in-between breaths.
But I was living in Atlanta at the time. There was always white cheese dip around when I needed a fix. Or so I believed. Then, in late 1994, I made a fateful decision. I took a job way out west. Oh, what a disaster that turned out to be! There was no white cheese dip anywhere to be found. People looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if they had the white chile con queso. My western friends shook their heads and laughed. “Why not just make your own?” they asked.
How I pitied the ignorant. They lived their lives in innocent bliss, for they had never tasted the best food of the Mexicans.
Then one day I decided to see if anyone else missed the white cheese as much as I. I posted a forlorn message to a news group for recipes. Much to my surprise, someone eventually wrote back to me with the recipe for the dip. It was no family secret after all! In fact, it was simple to make. And I had the ingredients available in local stores.
Well, eventually, I decided to share that recipe with other people. And I had no idea of just how many of us white cheese lovers have been cast adrift in a cold, dark cheese world. Out of more than 100 content sites, the White Cheese Dip page generates as much email for me as any. People come out of the woodwork, asking for help in finding the ingredients, looking for restaurants which may carry the dip, seeking the address for Land’O’Lakes.
You see, Land’O’Lakes (yes, the butter and sour cream people) makes the white cheese dip. For a brief time, they even sold it in grocery stores. I know. I bought it. But for reasons unknown to me, Land’O’Lakes only sells the dip to restaurants now. Apparently, only to Mexican family-owned restaurants in the southeastern United States.
I’m not sure people would sell their children for the dip, but that might depend entirely on how much trouble the kids are getting into on a given day. The hordes of former Easterners who rove the restaurant industry in states like Texas, Oklahoma, California, and New York grow each year. And just when I thought I was helping my brothers and sisters in the White Cheese Fellowship, I began receiving pleas for help in finding the ingrediants.
You see, while the dip is based on Asadero cheese, there are two kinds of Asadero cheese. The proper ingredient is made from skim milk. I’ve tried the other Asadero and it didn’t even come close to being right. But for reasons I don’t understand, the skim milk Asadero is more plentiful the farther west you go, and becomes difficult and then impossible to find the farther east you go.
Here in Houston, where I settled in 2001, I found one store which carried the right Asadero cheese. And then I relocated to a different part of the area. I have had to settle for substitutes. The Cacique Queso Blanco cheese works well enough, but it’s not quite the same.
Now, through the years I had heard from many people in Texas who were seeking the white cheese dip. They all told me it was nowhere to be found. So I was prepared for disappointment when I came here. I have sampled a few local Mexican restaurants. They do like to serve Monterrey Jack cheese on some dishes. It is a brutally rough approximation of a good white cheese dip. But occasionally I heard from people who said they had heard rumor of a delicious white cheese dip based on Monterrey Jack.
Could that be so? My own efforts to use Monterrey Jack to make a reasonable dip proved fruitless. Other people shared their failures with me via email, too. It just didn’t seem possible to me that someone could have pulled it off.
But then, yesterday, January 12, I received another email about the white cheese dip. This happens frequently. People thank me for sharing the recipe. People offer suggestions on variations to try. People ask questions about what to look for. I didn’t expect to find any surprises in the message.
But Susan from Katy, Texas dropped a bombshell in my lap: “There is a restaurant…called Berry Hill’s Hot Tamales (sic). My husband works for a hotel around the corner.”
I just happen to live right down the street from the place. Well, I had some errands to run, so I went out and did my deeds and eventually found myself in the parking lot of the Berry Hill restaurant. I have no idea of how many times I’ve driven past this place. Occasionally I’d look at their sign and think, “Maybe I should try there.” But I drove on.
You have to understand that one gets used to disappointment. People in the west just have no idea of what they are missing. People in the north think that salsa IS cheese dip. Only people who have lived in the South, who have eaten in the little greasy-spoon family-owned Mexican restaurant chains know what REAL white cheese dip is.
Still, I entered the restaurant with cheesy expectations. It’s like a small yuppie bar, for lack of a better description. I found myself surrounded by affluent people who looked like they should be buying designer shoes at exclusive malls. That was a hopeful sign.
You order your food and pay for it, and then seat yourself, and they bring it out to you. So, after looking around and seeing the place is not one of those immaculate corporate-carved contrivances, I approached the cashier with hope rising in my heart.
“Is your cheese dip white?” I asked. And there was that look, the, Are you insane? look with which I had been greeted throughout the west for many years. I almost left right then and there.
Well, pardner, I had some explaining to do. So I ‘splained, and the young lady smiled and said, “Yes, our dip is white, with a little yellow in it.” A little yellow? Real white cheese dip doesn’t have a little yellow in it. But then I thought, maybe that’s just a little discoloration from seasoning. After all, each restaurant mixes in its own selection of peppers and (sometimes) meats.
So, when she offered to show me a sample of the dip, I readily accepted. She came back after a few minutes with a little sample dish. And, yes, there was white cheese dip in it. So I placed an order for a small bowl (which is not small, I assure you). Oh, yes, I also bought a taco.
Berry Hill is reputedly known for its tacos. If you look at the news page on their Web site, you’ll see that the critics like their margaritas, taquitos, fish tacos, tamales and soups.
Now, I’m sure that food is perfectly good. In fact, I enjoyed my taco, as much as one can enjoy a taco. But, let’s face it. I didn’t go back for seconds on the taco. I went back for thirds on the chips. I almost couldn’t get enough of the cheese dip.
It’s almost perfect. And, surprisingly, if the duty manager was correct when I talked to her about the recipe, it’s not based on the Land’O’Lakes dip. Berry Hill uses…Monterrey Jack cheese as their base. Yes, someone has figured out how to make a very good white cheese dip using Monterrey Jack cheese.
Now, I’ve tried some of the local dishes, including the very popular Flameado, which only a few of the restaurants seem to serve. It’s based on Monterrey Jack cheese, but they mix meat in with it and it’s served on tortillas. You don’t actually dip stuff in it, as it’s not creamy enough to be used as a dip. And while Flameado can whet the appetite for the real thing, it doesn’t satisfy the craving at all.
Berry Hill’s cheese dip is good enough that I may move in there permanently. As long as my doctor doesn’t find out where all the cholesterol comes from, I should be safe.
I hope to talk with Jeff Anon, the owner of the restaurant, later this week. If he’s willing to share the recipe, I’ll post it on our Con Queso Web site. Of course, now that he knows there is a market for this dip, he may decide to protect a trade secret.
But if you live in Houston, be sure to check out Berry Hill. The location I visited is near the Galleria, facing San Felipe. Berry Hill also offers full service catering. If you do business with them, make sure they bring plenty of the cheese dip!